Michele Di Gregorio Joins Bournemouth on Loan from Juventus

Michele Di Gregorio has drawn a hard line under his Juventus chapter and stepped into the Premier League with intent, joining AFC Bournemouth on a season-long loan with an option to buy.

The deal could rise to around €14m including bonuses, a significant outlay for a club about to embark on its first European campaign. Bournemouth see a goalkeeper entering his peak. Juventus see a position already filled and, in the eyes of many of their fans, upgraded.

Di Gregorio, though, is already looking firmly south, not back towards Turin.

“I feel good, I feel happy, I'm very pleased to be here,” he said in his first interview as a Bournemouth player. “I felt the club's strong desire to bring me here and I felt the club's ambition to continue growing and achieving great things.”

That ambition has been enough for the Italian to scrub his social media of any Juventus reference. No photos, no tags, no trace of the club where he spent the last two seasons and played Champions League football. For a player who finished his time there under heavy scrutiny after a run of errors and nervous displays, the clean break feels deliberate.

At Bournemouth, the message is different: a goalkeeper eager to front up to the Premier League.

“The Premier League is definitely the best league in the world,” Di Gregorio said. “For me, it's an honour to be here and play in it and to be involved in matches at the highest level, I can't wait to get started.

“It's the first European experience for this club and I want to help out and hope to have a fantastic season.”

A new challenge, a familiar voice

Before committing to the move, Di Gregorio turned to someone who knows both worlds. Lloyd Kelly, his former Juventus teammate, spent five years at Bournemouth before heading to Serie A and was quickly on the phone.

“I spoke with (Lloyd) Kelly, I asked him because he'd already been here and he spoke very well of the club, the city and the life here,” Di Gregorio revealed. “He recommended this move to me. I also had the chance to speak with him about the Premier League and he told me it's a fantastic league where the games are always open and it's truly the best in the world.”

The picture painted was of a league that suits a reactive, front-foot goalkeeper. Di Gregorio clearly believes he fits that description.

“I believe I'm a very strong, reactive goalkeeper,” he said. “Being here and testing myself in this league where there are lots of top goalkeepers will help further my development.”

Those two years in Turin were not wasted, whatever the ending. He points to them as the foundation for this leap.

“Being at Juventus over the last two years allowed me to grow to a European level having played in the Champions League for the last two years. I believe that will serve me well and help me to help the team.”

Juventus move on, Di Gregorio does too

Back in Italy, Juventus have already turned the page. Guglielmo Vicario has arrived from Tottenham Hotspur on loan with an option to buy, a move many supporters see as an upgrade after Di Gregorio’s late-season stumbles.

The debate in Turin will run on. On the south coast of England, it barely matters.

Bournemouth are heading into Europe with a new goalkeeper who has wiped his old club from his public story and nailed his colours to a new one. Now he has to prove, in the most unforgiving league of all, that Juventus were wrong to let him go.